INSIDE ZION

INSIDE ZION

Haunted by ghosts
To Israel I went
Ancestral Home
of my Jewish bent

Gripped by the quest
I traveled the Holy Land
from Galilee to Gaza
I trod the Sinai sand

From African fate to Semite hate
Here again more colonial strife
Native Arab and Urbanized Jew
with hands on the knife

Israel and Ishmael
Sons of Abraham
Forgive the dead at Jericho’s wall
or the bomb in Jerusalem
will kill us all

Martyrs saints and crusaders
centuries of pain and glory
Holocaust, Pogrom and global war
all centered on a bible story

What great end this Aryan focus
on a Mid Eastern band?
Why make a Semite’s story
Familiar in Gentile land?

For eighty generations
in every Aryan mart
the Testament of the Jews
found union in our heart

From Jerusalem to London
Greek, Roman and Gaul
abandoned pagan ways
and harkened to St.Paul

Why court Mosaic command
or care for Adam’s deed?
among all of human history
its Abraham’s sons we heed

Seated upon Masada’s wall
I spent a restless night
I recalled the zealot’s fall
and appealed to ancestral sight

Impressed on my mind
was a prophecy so true
four thousand years ago
God had chosen the Jew

One tiny nation
had made its influence grow
in every field of endeavor
a Jew was in the know

Arab, Jew and Gentile
we’re divided by hate
we’ve disgraced our House
can’t we change our fate?

Created in Eden ’s garden
we revere a common thread
we share an ancient scripture
that should keep us in good stead

In a Holy Word we hold true
God heard Abraham’s appeal
He chose Israel to lead
and a deal is a deal

The Diaspora’s call
sped evolutionary tread
it prodded the Jew
generations ahead

In a Bronze Age mall
where land and clan
gave identity to all
the Jew was forced
behind the ghetto wall
where they forged a life
that would change us all

While gentiles farmed
and vendettas spread
eighty generations of Jews
tinkered and tailored
and forged ahead

Eventually imprinted
with a tradesman’s head
Israel fore-ran
the farming stead

They smithed and banked
and scriptures read
setting the stage
for an Iron Age bed

Viewed as parasites
Israel’s gifts were forgot
Just as God said
pogrom, holocaust and rot

Neither pogrom nor holocaust
can halt evolution’s tread
All of MAN
must use his head

Monopolizing business
in the gentile’s mall
by taking advantage
of time behind the wall
then funneling profits
through nepotism’s door
repeats anti-Semitism
and perpetrates the hate
among the poor

Using Zionist zeal
to finance Israel’s case
breeds only ferment
and keeps us in disgrace

Listen to history
God ’s chosen child
A Messianic message
has long been sent

In a biblical era
of tribal strife
a Jew named Jesus
had a message of life

He passed on an insight
that is common to us all
Love for a neighbor
is a universal call

Mohammed , Jesus and Isaiah
all Semite prophets of yore
none preached an ethnic hate
all were brothers to the core

By-gones are by-gone
forget about race
Let’s bless the Jew
for an Industrial pace

Let’s break the vicious cycle
and learn to care
all hard-earned crafts
enrich human fare

With Israel returned
to Abraham’s bed
immeasurably endowed
by evolution’s tread
it behooves the Jew
to share with his kind
and embrace the brother
who stayed behind

Place Christ ’s prayer
in Solomon’s wall
let’s rise above taboo
and vendetta’s call

Still seated thus
upon Masada’s wall
pondering it all
a Roman ghost appeared
and seemed to say
“Colonization is Evolution’s way
Knowledge must migrate
natives must adjust
and fore-go ethnic hate”

Prostrate in a Mosque
among Moslim gent
still troubled and unsure
by colonial meant
my quest in Zion
was finally spent